WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE. His graphic novel GLOBAL FREQUENCY is being developed for television by Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX. He is the writer of the graphic novel RED, adapted into the film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren. His next book is NORMAL from FSG.

Christ could have been crucified in any one of many ways, all of which would have affected the causes of his death, a paper published by Britain’s prestigious Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) says.

“The evidence available demonstrates that people were crucified in different postures and affixed to crosses using a variety of means,” said one of the authors, Piers Mitchell of Imperial College London. “Victims were not necessarily positioned head up and nailed through the feet from front to back, as is the imagery in Christian churches.”

The authors do not express any doubt on the act of Jesus’ crucifixion itself. But they note that the few eyewitness descriptions available today of crucifixions in the 1st century AD show the Romans had a broad and cruel imagination.

Their crucifixion methods probably evolved over time and depended on the social status of the victim and on the crime he allegedly committed, says the paper in April’s issue of the RSM journal.

The cross could be erected “in any one of a range of orientations”, with the victim sometimes head-up, sometimes head-down or in different postures.

Sometimes he was nailed to the cross by his genitals, sometimes the hands and feet were attached to the side of the cross and not the front, or affixed with cords rather than nails…

26 Comments

Ooooo Boy… now you KNOW you are asking for trouble for posting this, right? LMAO!

March 30, 2006

Susan

There’s one lesson future generations will be sure not to get in Catholic grade or high school. I mean, they were JUST willing to admit that MAYBE he wasn’t hung up by his hands and feet in the mid-90’s, let alone by his COCK.

Different methods of crucifixion are well known to Biblical scholars. The method of crucifixion could have been a single vertical bar (hands pinned above the head), a T-shaped “cross”, an X-shaped cross (c.f. the death of (St.) Andrew) as well as the traditional cruciform. (St.) Peter, according to tradition, was crucified inverted.

However the narrative in the Gospels supports the traditional depiction – face front, unseated and head-up. The main internal evidence for this is that the Roman soldiers broke the legs of the other condemned men to speed their death through asphyxiation as they would not have the arm strength to draw breath.

J

March 30, 2006

Alex

The nice thing about this is, if the mainstream churches refuse to accept the cock possibility, it’s a great refutation of the irritating orthodox stance that Jesus suffered more than any man alive. If someone says “Jesus died for your sins” you can say, ‘yeah, but at least he wasn’t hung up by his cock, like some other poor bastards. he should count his blessings”

March 30, 2006

Sobreiro

“He got a Prince Albert for your sins!”

March 30, 2006

Peter

Do you know if it’s possible to keep FeedWordPress
‘comments’ off bloglines, or is that just the way it is now?

Oh man… I kinda wish I was making a Kitkast episode this week so I could include it in my news segment!

March 30, 2006

Me

Wow. Now even more impressed by Jesus Christ. He hung up there for who knows how long, upside down, suspended by his johnson. This man truly was the King of the Jews.

March 30, 2006

bob

“…all of which would have affected the causes of his death…”
Various “scholars” occasionally return to the debate about what killed crucifixion victims (ie, Jesus), but what doesn’t get mentioned much is that many people, according to documents of the time, survived being crucified. Even Christian scripture tells us that Jesus was taken down early, and *didn’t* have his legs broken, so he hardly “suffered more than any man alive.” Heck, he didn’t even suffer as much as the other guys he was crucified with, much less as much as the cock-suspended.

Bob – you don’t need to break the legs of a person being crucified if they’re already dead, plus you seem to forget that Jesus had been beaten up and scourged before the crucifixion, and the evidence of extreme stress (sweating blood) in the Garden of Gethsemane. So in the end you would have a man that had undergone twelve rounds with Rome’s finest and had lost a lot of blood in the process. This is before you even consider the spiritual dimension.

Adam

Yeah, Son of God or no, he took one hell of a beating.

And THEN they nailed him to the cross.

March 30, 2006

bob

The “sweating blood” bit is probably a metaphor, not a description. After being hung up there for perhaps as little as three hours (according to some reconstructions of events), it would have been unusual for him to have died already, even with a whipping. The Bible mentions Pontius Pilate being surprised when told he was dead already.
How did they know he died? They poked him with a stick. Even modern doctors occasionally declare someone dead who isn’t; Roman-guard-with-stick is hardly the most foolproof test of life. After “death” he was hidden away with pounds of (medicinal) ointments (that’s NOT part of funerary rites of the time). Days later, he shows up so badly swollen from injuries he’s unrecognizable (according to the Bible). Without the “spiritual dimension” we have the story of a guy who was crucified and rendered unconscious, not dead. Coming back from the grave makes for a better story, though some Christian traditions DO state that he didn’t die on the cross, so…

March 30, 2006

RMC

This was great to listen to on TALKR, lemme tell ya! Laugh? I died & rose again!

Bob – There is a recognised medical phenomenon called “hematohidrosis” which involves blood transfusing into the sweat glands during extreme duress. The observation was recorded by the writer-physician, Luke.

Secondly, the death test wasn’t a poke from a stick. Aside from the fact that Roman soldiers were likely to know a dead body when they saw one, /and/ that the person crucified would have had to pull themselves up to breathe in a very visible manner, the “poke” was actually a spear in the side. The blood and water that came out of the wound describes either the separation of plasma from haemoglobin following death or, more likely, describing blood and clear fluid from the pericardial sac exiting when the spear pierced the heart. Death was certain.

J

March 30, 2006

matt_

Mel Gibson is hastily penning a special edition DVD alternative ending to The Passion Of The Christ as we speak. Maybe he’ll make it an Easter Egg!

TUSCERO, Spain – On a sidestreet of the otherwise sleepy seaside town of Tuscero, throngs of the faithful gather to stare in wonder at the blood-stained pants of local fisherman Jorge Santao, who for the last ten years has evidenced the wounds of Christ throughout the Christian season of Lent.

Although the Vatican refuses to officially confirm or deny that Santao’s wounds are indeed ‘stigmata’, the spontaneous and otherwise unexplained appearance of wounds on the penis or genital region similar to those allegedly suffered by the central figure of the Christian religion, many claim that their faith has been strengthened simply by the viewing Mr. Santao’s bloody and ravaged penis.

“It makes me feel closer to Jesus just looking at it,” said Mrs. Nell Casey, 68, of Tulsa OK, who had travelled the 3,400 miles by plane, bus and finally a wooden tour boat just to see what is called by some The Miracle Cock of Tuscero.

Dave

Come on people. Can we stop the fighting about HOW Jesus died and rejoice in the fact that when Jesus DID die he almost certainly expelled his bowls in front of a large group of people. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. By Lord I mean Warren, of course.